Welcome to the Online Clann Tartan Newsletter for March 2013

Board Election Results

Vice President: Karen Bastien

Secretary: Betsy Bolton

Quartermaster: Mike McCarty

Company Rep: David Vavreck

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Fargo Celtic fair

Clann Tartan has been invited once again to fill a table at the Celtic Festival sponsored annually by the Fargo Park
District at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead. The 2013 date is Saturday, March 9. As noted last year, it's an easy
event: no tents, no pikes, and the show even provides us with hot lunches. But it is about 230 miles from the Twin
Cities, so people often get a hotel room or stay with friends on Friday night. The Web site for
the festival is Fargo Parks Celtic Fair,; you can view the physical location—which is worth a
visit by itself—at Hjemkomstcenter.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Reasonably priced, accurate 17th century shoes, boots, and other leather items,
are available from member Pegeen Rozeske. 320-493-6163

Want to quit smoking? Lose weight? Sleep better? Deal with other issues? Your good Auntie/Cousin Mairi is
opening her hypnotism clinic! For more information or to schedule a session, contact me at Mairi2 at juno dot com, or via cell at 651-307-2977.

I look forward to working with you!

Mary McKinley

Wanted!

Submissions for the Newsletter!

Items you can submit include research articles, character sketches, and other items pertaining to living history and
Scottish Culture. Email your items in either plain text, or MS Word format to newsletter at clanntartan.org or
snail mail to our postal address.

Items must be received by the 15th of each month to be considered for inclusion for the upcoming
months issue. Mailed submissions will not be returned unless requested. All pertinent submissions
will be considered as space permits. All research articles must reference at least three sources.
Submissions may be broken in multiple parts.

Deadline for articles to go in the April newsletter will be the Ides of March.

The doors lock at 7 pm on Tuesdays so members who are interested in attending
the meeting should contact Karen.

Staff

Chief of Staff

Sarah Shaftman

612-371-4425

smuzikant at visi dot com

Assistant Chief of Staff

vacant

Captain

Marty Byers

651-261-5815

orthodoxdruid at gmail dot com

Lieutenant

Rich Mueller

(651) 583-4264

dragon_musk at yahoo dot com

Head Camp Follower

Anthea Potter

763-257-7038

anthea at winternet dot com

Assistant HCF

Betsy Bolton

612-619-6406

basil80 at hotmail dot com

Other Staff

Ann Peters

612-333-0605

AnnEdyth at aol dot com

Other Staff

Glenn McDavid

651-490-1842

gmcdavid at comcast dot net

Other Staff

Mike McCarty

612-619-6406 (cell)

mccartym149 at gmail dot com

Other Staff

Judy Byers

651-261-3933

Other Staff

John Debnam

952-492-5536

mage_ironwolf at yahoo dot com

Our garage is located at 4352 Nicollet Ave S in Minneapolis. Access is in the alley on the west
side of Nicollet. South bay of the double garage. Minor problems or issues should be reported to Bruce.
In the event of an emergency, the landlord is Brad at 763-670-9200

Sword Guild:

If you are interested, contact Marty Byers (Email orthodoxdruid@gmail.com), with days of the week and times that work for you. I will then get back to you.

Music

We will sing and play music of many styles and places
from our period. Bring your voice and/or your
instrument(s). Neither need be period correct.

The Yoders have graciously offered to host music once
a month. We will meet at their house at 4736 12th Ave
S, Minneapolis, from 7 - 9pm the 1st Thursday of each
month.

To contact the Yoders, call 612-825-4519 or email to
Julieyoder at juno dot com.

To contact your Music Chair, call David at
612-353-1237 or email to baethan1630 at yahoo dot com

Thanks, and I look forward to making some noise with
y'all!

David

We have a yahoo groups email list for the guild that we use for reminders about the meetings
and topical discussions. If you want to be on the email list, request an invitation to join from Bruce at
bruceyoder at juno dot com.

Dance

The Dance Guild gathers twice a month from 7PM-9PM to learn and practice historic Scottish country dances.

2nd & 4th Tuesdays

It is at the northeast corner of Highway 36 and Hamline Avenue (Hamline is between Snelling and Lexington).
The church is actually encircled by the highway entrance ramp. You may have heard of
St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Think of this as
St. Christopher's-in-the-Cloverleaf :-)>

Dance group will not meet on Tuesday, December 25.

For more information call:

Julie at 612-825-4519.

We have a yahoo groups email list for the guild that we use for reminders about the meetings and
topical discussions. If you want to be on the email list, request an invitation to join from Bruce at
bruceyoder at juno dot com.

Fiber Guild

Those who would like instruction, inspiration, or just to come out and play should contact Mia McDavid, 651-490-1842.
email miamcdavid at gmail dot com .

Historic Site

Clann Tartan has our own historic site near Duluth MN. Dun Gowan is an ongoing project, which is the
site of Gaffneyis Annual Tactical in June. We are finishing the fort and beginning the construction
of a village this year. Contact David Vavreck at 612-353-1237 or baethan1630 at yahoo dot com
for further information, or to volunteer to help.

Baethan at the Moon

This irregular column addresses members' questions about, well, anything related to what we in Gaffneyis Regiment do. What is event X like? Are thingamajigs period? How do you make a whatzahoozits? Where do you get a fribber-frabber? Members are invited to send questions about anything pertinent to Baethan (David Vavreck) who can be reached at 612-353-1237 or baethan (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Baethan was asked, "What do period waffle irons look like?"

mmm... waffles...

The earliest waffle receipts are found in Le Ménagier de Paris of the late 14th century. There are four variations of the recipe; here is one of them:
Beat some eggs in a bowl, season with salt and add wine. Toss in some flour, and mix. Then fill, little by little, two irons at a time with as much of the paste as a slice of cheese is large. Then close the iron and cook both sides. If the dough does not detach easily from the iron, coat it first with a piece of cloth that has been soaked in oil or grease.

The next time a waffle receipt appears is in a Dutch manuscript of the early to mid 16th century.

Take grated white bread. Take with that the yolk of an egg and a spoonful of pot sugar or powdered sugar. Take with that half water and half wine, and ginger and cinnamon.

Some time after that, a Belgian receipt is recorded:

Take white flour, warm cream, fresh melted butter, yeast, and mix together until the flour is no longer visible. Then add ten or twelve egg yolks. Those who do not want them to be too expensive may also add the egg white and just milk. Put the resulting dough at the fireplace for four hours to let it rise better before baking it

According to the wiki article on waffles, they were sold by street vendors in larger towns as something of a fast food or snack, and generally used non-wheat flour and were unsweetened, making them much more affordable to the masses.

For what it is worth, according to thenibble.com's article about waffles, the separatist dogs brought waffle irons with them aboard the Mayflower to the New World, but there is no citation given.

By the 16th century, waffles and waffle irons start appearing in art. Below is "Making Waffles" by Joachim de Beuckalaer, ca. 1550-1560.

As you can see, the waffle iron is long handled (so you do not have to be too close to the fire), and makes rectangular waffles. There are a number of period images of waffle irons; I chose this one because the iron so clearly depicted. That, and I thought Mia would appreciate the niddy noddy.

Cabela's recently carried a long handled waffle iron, although theirs made round waffles which seems to have been uncommon in our period. The price was right, though - only about $24. Unfortunately, I no longer see them on their website.

If someone who is a better googler than myself were to poke around, perhaps there is a good waffle iron out there to be had.

Lastly, if you want to be a real trendsetter, decorate your hat thusly:

This is a detail from a 1559 painting by Pieter Bruegel - "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent."

Here are a couple websites with waffle history: Separate wheat and chaff at your own risk.

Be sure to contact your staff
if you plan on attending a show event. Try to give at least a ten day notice when possible.
This allows proper planning for the feeding of our members, and in some cases is required by event
organizers to allow entry as a participant.

You can call any of the staff members listed, or send an email to staff at clanntartan.org.

The following is a list of the dates of the events that are currently on the
schedule for this year. The staff has met and decided to keep this running list
of events in the newsletter to give you a chance to get an idea of what is going
on this season as well as keep you updated to changes in the schedule.

The column titled status will include the following information.

Tentative- this means that an event organizer or Clann has expressed a strong
enough interest in doing this event that it warrants reserving space on the
calendar for the event.

Pending- this is the next stage of an event. This means that the Contracts Administrator has
entered serious discussion about Clann doing an event but we are still not
committed to the event. You should however if possible think about whether or not
you may be able to attend this event.

Scheduled- this level means that the board and staff have approve the event
and we are committed to providing manpower to making the event happen. When an
event is assigned this level please let the HCF know as soon as possible if you
can or can not attend this event.

Canceled- This means that for various reasons an scheduled event has been
removed from the current season. We will try and give as much notice as we can
prior to canceling an event.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact staff
regarding this matter